I think that pretty much all the ‘Personalised URL’ jobs that I have ever needed to do have always been of the directory style, e.g:

www.domain.com/mylovelyusername

However, it strikes me that a better and more programatically favourable format is the sub-domain pattern, e.g:

mylovelyusername.domain.com

In this instance you don’t have to worry about holding information in sessions, or setting up anything else complicated to make sure that they visit that URL first – it doesn’t matter with the sub-domain pattern as you always have there unique identifier to hand in the URL. Im not wholly sure why it is that more people don’t see the benefit of doing this – if you ask me it ‘feels’ more personal that a one time visit to a directory style URL.

2 Responses to “Choosing a style of personalised URL”

  1. Derek Almond Says:

    www.domain.com/mylovelyusername

    shares and increases google page rank for www.domain.com

    mylovelyusername.domain.com

    splits and divides google page rank for www.domain.com

    its a marketing thing.

    D

  2. Tim Perrett Says:

    Sure, I understand that – Take sites like “stumble upon”, the way in which they use the sub-domain pattern for member pages feels significantly better (in my humble opinion).

    In an instance where your using it for member pages, Im not sure the fact that it ‘divides page rank’ is a major issue?

    Cheers

    Tim

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